NOW IT BEGINS

so, it's officially the first weekend of a tourist destination's summer:  Memorial Day Weekend.  the traffic is rolling down the highways from PA, MD, VA, D.C. to the beaches, has been since Thursday afternoon.  i made the mistake of grocery shopping for our own holiday weekend company yesterday.  mercy mercy, it was a traffic jam in every aisle.  and we do have holiday company coming soon - gotta go make some beds and clean some bathrooms right this minute.  probably won't be posting or reading much until middle of next week.  so to everyone in J-Land, happy and safe holidays, remember what the holiday is about, not just BBQ's and sunburns.  i personally wish we could remember those who have served, and died, in past wars and from that memory draw the inference that war is, in general, a very bad idea.  not use it for making ever more martial speeches and actions.  that's my thinking.

and those of you who haven't gotten your free scoop of B & J's ice cream from my previous post - what is the matter with you?  go there, do it!  action for the environment and free ice cream, who could ask for anything more?

ENVIRONMENTAL NOTES

 

i did know about this when it happened, but it was during my meltdown, so i never wrote about it.  i was, however, certainly outraged by it.  i'm talking about the changes in organic food standards the administration slipped past us while most of us weren't looking back in April.  among those changes (which the Dept of Agriculture called "clarifications.")  were expanding the use of antibiotics for organic dairy cows, pesticides on organic crops (they have never heard the word "oxymoron."), allowing nonorganic fishmeal and other substances into livestock feed.  sort of eliminates the reasons for going out of our way and paying thru the nose for "organic" produce and meats, doesn't it? 

Well, here's the good news:  organic farmers and shoppers made such an outcry  (see, protests DO WORK!) about this that the Dept of Agriculture is rescinding the changes:  "The Bush administration abruptly reversed itself Wednesday and withdrew four changes in organic food standards that critics had said threatened to undermine public trust in the word organic...The reversal was in response to a broad wave of outrage from organic farmers, the $11 billion organic food industry, its advocates and Republican and Democratic supporters in Congress. They objected both to the changes and to the fact that National Organic Program administrators made them in private without consulting their own advisory board or organic producers."  read the whole article here at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Next note:  today's BushGreenwatch carries this headline:  Bush Salmon Plan Seen as Ruse to Cripple Endangered Species Act.  YES! these clever folk have found a way to get those pesky wild salmon in the Northwest out of trouble!  they're just going to count hatchery salmon, a whole different animal in truth, in with the count of the wild fish!  read the story here at Greenwatch, then go here to read more of it from Tidepool, where it was reported almost a month ago.  put Tidepool on your list of great environmental links, by the way.  i just discovered it and am crazy about it.

And finally, here's an environmental action you can take that will actually help your calorie count!  you probably know that Dennis Quaid's supposedly environmental movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is opening tomorrow (if you're breathing you can't HELP but know this, the advance publicity has been universal).  to help get the word out about the reality (as opposed to the movie fantasy, which looks a lot like, oh, maybe Independence Day) of global warming,  the folks at National Defenses Resource Council are offering you a free scoop of Ben & Jerry's if you go to the link and take a simple action requiring only a mouse click and some informational input, unless you're already registered with their action network, and then it's just the click.  and you'll get your coupon for a yummy treat from those Vermont black and whites!  do it now!

POLITICS OF FEAR

Two things came together this morning in what seems to me a fortunate confluence.  One was reading the headlines (first the headlines, then the articles themselves.) on AOL news:

       FEDS WARN OF SUMMER ATTACK

       TERRORISTS MAY BE HERE ALREADY

       NERVE GAS CONFIRMED IN IRAQ

which form a collage of fear and trembling, don't they?  The second was opening my yesterday's mail and reading a long mailing from Rabbi Michael Lerner, the main force behind the organization called Tikkun.  Tikkun is a Hebrew word meaning "healing and transformation" and that is the purpose of the organization.  I invite you here to go to the Tikkun site and click on the Core Vision link on the home page, it will give you much of the same information contained in the letter from Rabbi Lerner, as well as a good deal more.

Lerner speaks of this atmosphere of terror in which we now live: "The landscape of world politics has changed so much in the last several years, but liberals and progressives have not caught on or up.  Yes, the Left has voiced important critiques of Bush's policies on Iraq, environmental degradation, the undermining of civil liberties, and the economic devastation brought by extreme tax cuts for the rich. But underlying all the specific distortions that shape mainstream politics today is something deeper - the reemergence of a politics of fear which pushes all of us toward our most constricted, reptilian, Paleolithic consciousness."

He continues:  "Post 9/11, and post the horrific terror attack in Spain, the justifiable concerns of Americans, Europeans, and Israelis have been turned into a mass psychology of fear. That fear numbs us, enabling good people to ignore orrepress their moraloutrage and to accept reactionary policies as 'necessary'.  An administration that systematically lies, a Congress that cravenly succumbs to the lies, the undermining of fundamental civil liberties, a media unable to tell the story of the global suffering caused by the operations of corporate globalization, a media that won't even tell Americans what their own troops are being ordered to do to repress the Iraqi people - all this is considered 'normal' in a society which has allowed itself to become traumatized by fear and ruled by its own cynical realism."

So, here we are, in daily trauma from the headlines, from the nightly news, from the speeches of our politicians - what does Tikkun propose?  What are they offering?  Something so truly radical and revolutionary that it sounds entirely insane, totally wacko.  More from Lerner's letter:  "Politics today is about fear vs. hope...building a movement that is unequivocally committed to a larger vision of social transformation and healing...(that)believes that the answer to the threat of world terrorism lies not in domination and control, but in cooperation and generosity...we draw from the spiritual wisdom of the human race, we draw also from the wisdom of secular traditions...while rejecting all orthodoxies and all impositions of political correctness...We are not advocates of some specific religion or spirituality; some of our members are militant atheists.  Our shared belief is this:  a progressive politics will be more successful when it incorporates a discourse of love, kindness, generosity, and openheartedness, seeks spiritual balance and fosters a sense of awe and wonder, encourages gratitude for all the goodness in the universe, teaches us to treasure each moment and be present to the goodness in the other, encourages us to stop focusing so much energy on our own personal story and our ego needs so we can see ourselves as part of the Unity of All Being."

Well, see, I told you it sounded crazy.  And it's a kind of crazy that I can get right into.  My belief is that we have fomented terrorism with our actions in the world ever since the trauma of September 2001and that it's more than time for a radically different approach to solving our problems.  Yes, Lerner may be a visionary- it's only the visionaries who ever truly make a difference in the world.  Yes, he's a Rabbi, so his visions are of necessity deeply spiritual and Jewish.  One of the greatest problems in the mid-east today is that of Israel/Palestine - he applies his Tikkun thinking to that situation too.  I believe I may finally have found a spiritual home - one I've been searching for for quite some time.  I'm not leaping into anything, but I'm definitely going to do some research and thought in re this organization.

AHAH!

A quote i cribbed from a new journal friend in Scotland who periodically has great entries with jokes and others with quotes. the day after yet another unconvincing TV appearance i feel compelled to say that this may perhaps explain the fact of our current president:

"Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man."  Bertrand Russell

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

               

PIPING PLOVERS (Charadrius Melodus)

the little guy in the photo is a piping plover, one of our most threatened Atlantic shorebirds.  i've lived near beaches for the past twelve years, both here in Delaware and previously in Massachusetts.  in both places piping plovers and people have had clashes over beach usage.  in spring, the birds nest in shallow depressions in the sand, close to the dunes or on the beach.  the nests are almost invisible until you are right on top of them.  so, wildlife agencies close off sections of the beach where the plovers are most likely to locate their nests.  these often happen to be the same places to which human beach-goers want access:  users of beach RV's, dogwalkers, fishermen, folks who like to seek out secluded beach areas and get a little sun on skin that's usually covered on the other beaches.  the enclosures also prevent the birds' many predators: foxes, dogs, cats, skunks, raccoons, gulls, from getting to the eggs in the nest.  of all the predators, however, motorized vehicles are by far the worst.  not even Park personnel can enter the closed-off areas during this nesting and fledging period. 

here in DE thisyear things are complicated by the fact that there was a minor oil spill off the coast in March.  this could affect this year's nesting group. park staff along the coast are still cleaning up clumps of heavy oil that have washed ashore.  this is one of their more southern nesting grounds, New Jersey has significantly more, and all the federal beaches there are closed off entirely during plover season.

these little guys are on different federal lists in different places, mainly as a "threatened species," which means one that's soon likely to be endangered.  one of the more endearing traits of this bird is the action it takes to protect its nest if it is threatened:  it wanders away from the nest dragging one wing behind it as if it were broken, in order to lure the predator after it and away from the nest.  then, of course, it can safely fly away when the predator is safely distracted from the nest.

a few places to find out more about this charming shore bird: the Fish and Wildlife Service has a lot of info on this page, this guy has several pages with tons of fascinating stuff, and then - after you've made an expert of yourself by reading all this, you can go take a plover quiz here and maybe you'll score 15 out of 15.  i did!

KURT VONNEGUT, STILL GOING!

Although long, i thought this piece by Kurt Vonnegut from the wonderful In These Times magazine was well worth posting - therefore, if you have the time, well worth reading.  as gasoline prices approach the astronomical (which Europeans have been paying for quite some time) i think you will appreciate the bottom line he's making.  it takes him a while, but i never mind following the train of his mind.

Cold Turkey
By Kurt Vonnegut May 10, 2004

Many years ago, I was so innocent I still considered it possible that we could become the humane and reasonable America so many members of my generation used to dream of. We dreamed of such an America during the Great Depression, when there were no jobs. And then we fought and often died for that dream during the Second World War, when there was no peace.

But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of Americans becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.

-------------------------

When you get to my age, if you get to my age, which is 81, and if you have reproduced, you will find yourself asking your own children, who are themselves middle-aged, what life is all about. I have seven kids, four of them adopted.

Many of you reading this are probably the same age as my grandchildren. They, like you, are being royally shafted and lied to by our Baby Boomer corporations and government.

I put my big question about life to my biological son Mark. Mark is a pediatrician, and author of a memoir, The Eden Express. It is about his crackup, straightjacket and padded cell stuff, from which he recovered sufficiently to graduate from Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Vonnegut said this to his doddering old dad: "Father, we are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is." So I pass that on to you. Write it down, and put it in your computer, so you can forget it.

I have to say that's a pretty good sound bite, almost as good as, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucius, a Chinese philosopher, 500 years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ.

The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.

But back to people, like Confucius and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, who've said how we could behave more humanely, and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorites is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this:

Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was only 4, ran 5 times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.
As long as there is a criminal element, I'm of it.
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools or health insurance for all?

How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

And so on.

Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney stuff.

For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.

"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!

-------------------------

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.

But, when you stop to think about it, only a nut case would want to be a human being, if he or she had a choice. Such treacherous, untrustworthy, lying and greedy animals we are!

I was born a human being in 1922 A.D. What does "A.D." signify? That commemorates an inmate of this lunatic asylum we call Earth who was nailed to a wooden cross by a bunch of other inmates. With him still conscious, they hammered spikes through his wrists and insteps, and into the wood. Then they set the cross upright, so he dangled up there where even the shortest person in the crowd could see him writhing this way and that.

Can you imagine people doing such a thing to a person?

No problem. That's entertainment. Ask the devout Roman Catholic Mel Gibson, who, as an act of piety, has just made a fortune with a movie about how Jesus was tortured. Never mind what Jesus said.

During the reign of King Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England, he had a counterfeiter boiled alive in public. Show biz again.

Mel Gibson's next movie should be The Counterfeiter. Box office records will again be broken.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.

-------------------------

And what did the great British historian Edward Gibbon, 1737-1794 A.D., have to say about the human record so far? He said, "History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."

The same can be said about this morning's edition of the New York Times.

The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus, who won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1957, wrote, "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."

So there's another barrel of laughs from literature. Camus died in an automobile accident. His dates? 1913-1960 A.D.

Listen. All great literature is about what a bummer it is to be a human being: Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Red Badge of Courage, the Iliad and the Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible and The Charge of the Light Brigade.

But I have to say this in defense of humankind: No matter in what era in history, including the Garden of Eden, everybody just got there. And, except for the Garden of Eden, there were already all these crazy games going on, which could make you act crazy, even if you weren't crazy to begin with. Some of the games that were already going on when you got here were love and hate, liberalism and conservatism, automobiles and credit cards, golf and girls' basketball.

Even crazier than golf, though, is modern American politics, where, thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative.

Actually, this same sort of thing happened to the people of England generations ago, and Sir William Gilbert, of the radical team of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrote these words for a song about it back then:

I often think it's comical
How nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
Or else a little Conservative.
Which one are you in this country? It's practically a law of life that you have to be one or the other. If you aren't one or the other, you might as well be a doughnut.

If some of you still haven't decided, I'll make it easy for you.

If you want to take my guns away from me, and you're all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you're for the poor, you're a liberal.

If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you're a conservative.

What could be simpler?

-------------------------

My government's got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

One, of course, is ethyl alcohol. And President George W. Bush, no less, and by his own admission, was smashed or tiddley-poo or four sheets to the wind a good deal of the time from when he was 16 until he was 41. When he was 41, he says, Jesus appeared to him and made him knock off the sauce, stop gargling nose paint.

Other drunks have seen pink elephants.

And do you know why I think he is so pissed off at Arabs? They invented algebra. Arabs also invented the numbers we use, including a symbol for nothing, which nobody else had ever had before. You think Arabs are dumb? Try doing long division with Roman numerals.

We're spreading democracy, are we? Same way European explorers brought Christianity to the Indians, what we now call "Native Americans."

How ungrateful they were! How ungrateful are the people of Baghdad today.

So let's give another big tax cut to the super-rich. That'll teach bin Laden a lesson he won't soon forget. Hail to the Chief.

That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven't noticed, they've already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.

Nobody let out a peep when they did that to you, because they have disconnected every burglar alarm in the Constitution: The House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the FBI, the free press (which, having been embedded, has forsaken the First Amendment) and We the People.

About my own history of foreign substance abuse. I've been a coward about heroin and cocaine and LSD and so on, afraid they might put me over the edge. I did smoke a joint of marijuana one time with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, just to be sociable. It didn't seem to do anything to me, one way or the other, so I never did it again. And by the grace of God, or whatever, I am not an alcoholic, largely a matter of genes. I take a couple of drinks now and then, and will do it again tonight. But two is my limit. No problem.

I am of course notoriously hooked on cigarettes. I keep hoping the things will kill me. A fire at one end and a fool at the other.

But I'll tell you one thing: I once had a high that not even crack cocaine could match. That was when I got my first driver's license! Look out, world, here comes Kurt Vonnegut.

And my car back then, a Studebaker, as I recall, was powered, as are almost all means of transportation and other machinery today, and electric power plants and furnaces, by the most abused and addictive and destructive drugs of all: fossil fuels.

When you got here, even when I got here, the industrialized world was already hopelessly hooked on fossil fuels, and very soon now there won't be any more of those. Cold turkey.

Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't like TV news, is it?

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on.

WEEKEND ASSIGNMENT #6

As those of you who follow these things know, Dr. Scalzi's current weekend assignment is to write about our Best Friend in second grade, if our memories extend that far back in time.  i've done the assignment over here.  another cheap ploy to get folks to visit my book journal.  didn't work last weekend, but you know how hope springs eternal.  so go there already, why dontcha!!!!

NANCY, YOU GO GIRL!

well, well, a Democrat in a position of some visibility and authority has finally spoken out in what i think is an appropriate way about the competence of the president and administration in re the economy and the war in Iraq.  Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Whip, apparently pissed off a lot of Republicans after Bush's trip to the Hill to "reassure" them that everything was just peachy.  She finally had the ovaries to say, in no uncertain terms, that everything is way less than peachy.  Here's the article, from CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday sharply questioned President Bush's competence as a leader, suggesting his policy in Iraq is to blame for the loss of U.S. lives. That assessment drew a furious response by Republicans who called on the Democratic leader to apologize.

"The emperor has no clothes," Pelosi, D-California, told reporters on Thursday. "When are people going to face the reality? Pull this curtain back."

Pelosi first delivered her comments to a California newspaper. She repeated them during an exchange with reporters Thursday -- the same day Bush was on Capitol Hill meeting in private with GOP lawmakers in a sort of pep rally for the party faithful.

Republicans effused praise for the president as they left the meeting, but Democrats were having none of it.

"The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me, and that is the competence of our leader," Pelosi said. "These policies are not working. But speaking specifically to Iraq, we have a situation where -- without adequate evidence -- we put our young people in harm's way."

Asked specifically if she was calling Bush incompetent, Pelosi replied:

"I believe that the president's leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers."

Pelosi charged the Bush administration has proved itself wrong on a number of issues with Iraq, including its initial assertions that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops and that Iraq itself could pay for much of the reconstruction effort.

"Rocket-propelled grenades, not rose petals, greeted them," Pelosi said of U.S. troops. "Instead ... of Iraq being a country that would readily pay for its own reconstruction ... we're up to over $200 billion in cost to the American people."

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay blasted Pelosi, casting her comments as detrimental to U.S. troops.

"Nancy Pelosi should apologize for her irresponsible, dangerous rhetoric," DeLay, R-Texas, said. "She apparently is so caught up in partisan hatred for President Bush that her words are putting American lives at risk."

The Republican National Committee also released a written statement, saying Pelosi and other Democrats were putting more blame for the deaths of U.S. service members on Bush than on terrorists. And the statement tied Pelosi to Sen. John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

"The San Francisco/Boston Democrats led by John Kerry have now adopted 'Blame America First' as their official policy," RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie said in the statement.

Pelosi did not back down, even when asked if her comments would undermine Bush's abilities as commander in chief.

"His activities, his decisions, the results of his actions are what undermines his leadership, not my statement," Pelosi said. "My statements are just a statement of fact."

At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan was asked about Pelosi.

"I just don't think that such comments are worth dignifying with any response from this podium," he said.

If you think Rep. Pelosi's remarks were dead on, why don't you call her office (202-225-4965) or email her at sf.nancy@mail.house.gov, and let her know?  especially if you live in CA, especially if you live in her district. you can be sure those who want to pound her into the dirt are speaking their minds.  i've both called and written, even though i'm on the opposite coast from her district.  she's doing what i wish my own members of Congress had the nerve to do, what i wish John Kerry had the nerve to do.  let's not leave her twisting in the wind alone.

NO BUZZ IN SUSSEX COUNTY

Here's a little visual for those of you who haven't yet seen the Brood X cicadas in person.  this is one molting from its shell - about to have its little fling, after 17 years of life underground.  i know they're already rampant in D.C. and Maryland, so i've been waiting for them to start emerging in my large backyard.  now, in today's local newspaper i find this welcome headline:  SUSSEX SKIPS NOISY CICADAS.   that's Sussex County, Delaware.  the article goes on to say  "Predictions are that Sussex County and parts of Kent County will be spared the noise and nuisance associated with the Periodic Brood X Cicadas which are emerging....by the billions in Maryland, Washington and other deciduous regions of the Mid-Atlantic."   Apparently they don't like the coast.  In fact, the mayor of Ocean City, MD was on TV recently advertising the fact that his vacation location will be cicada-free, so come on down and party, folks!  the Agricultural Extension Agent says "You have to have the right environment for them to live in.  They like deciduous trees.  We don't have the right kind of forests and soil for them."

i'm often dissatisfied with living in what is called "slower lower Delaware," but this is one occasion when i'm thankful to be here with our nondeciduous forests of evergreens and our sandy soil. 

my neighbor came over to chat earlier this morning, said a female peacock showed up in his yard a few days ago and seems to be hanging out there.  we were thinking she'd have a lot of cicadas to feast on soon.  looks like she won't.  ah, well.

 

AND I KNOW YOU'RE ALL WONDERING:

...why the hell do i still have dial-up?  because i'm a retarded luddite and just haven't managed to get it together to do another thing.  and now i have a new modem, and yes the old one got fried by the lightning yesterday because i had the line directly running from the phone jack to the computer instead of thru the surge protector.  see?  retarded luddite.  anyway, it won't happen again.  and eventually i'll get a whole new computer and then i'll get a better method of connecting.  until when, i muddle on.  but i'm glad to be able to get online, albeit in an antiquated fashion, in my own little home office. 

before the bottom dropped out of my world last month, i was regularly chronicaling the environmental evils of this administration.  since that time i have mostly just been writing of my life events, with a few political musings thrown in.  i do intend to return to providing links and news from the environmental front, but not just yet.  my mental energy has been spent dealing with the constant barrage of news from Iraq and Washington. 

today i finally had the energy to get out into my own environment and start to work on the wild jungle that it has all become.  i had a wonderful time out there, spent a lot of it mowing down the rain forest that is the back "lawn."  because i use a battery-powered mower i can never get the whole thing done in one session.  the battery runs out before the yard is finished, and that's okay because at that point i have about "run out" of juice as well.  i love my mower: it's quiet, mulches the grass as it cuts it, uses no petroleum products so doesn't emit fumes nor smell bad. after i mowed i spend some gratifying time aerobically weeding, pulling out last year's morning glory vines, dead stalks of monarda and other perennials - all things i should have done two months ago. my neighbor strolls through his yard with a tank of chemicals, cheerfully killing his weeds, but i garden entirely organically, so my weeds have had time to grow into the Bionic Plants from Hell.

Tank Gurl has been raving (in this and previous entries) about the 17 year brood of cicadas emerging in her D.C. back yard, but they haven't gotten here yet.  D.C.'s only 100 miles away, so i expect to see them any day now.  in the meantime, the peonies are in full blowsy bloom, the rhododendrons have almost run their course but still quite splendidly blooming.  i'm not sure what the biblical horde of cicadas will choose to munch on;  i'm hoping they go up into the trees rather than devastate my perennials.  despite the weeds, things are coming along beautifully, herbs and flowers anyway.  i never yet have gotten any vegetables planted, though i have three tomato plants a friend gave me from her plantings.  they're delicious little yellow grape babies, we had them last year too.

now i must go take a serious shower, and go off to yet another graduation.  this one is the college commencement - we have eight former ESL program students graduating from the college itself this year.  one of them was my ESL student when he was in high school.  my first teaching experience in Delaware was working with the kids in a local high school who needed help with their English.  it was the very worst kind of ESL program, called a "pull out" program, but we managed to accomplish some good stuff.  this kid who's graduating tonight is Chinese, he and his sister were terrific students in high school, he took some of the advanced level ESL courses, then went into the microcomputers program in the college.  he intends to transfer to the Univ. of Michigan for next year.  someone remarked in a previous post that i sound like a proud parent about these graduates, and yes i guess that's true.  i've know this guy since he was sixteen - i almost feel like a parent.  and i am, indeed, proud of all of them.

WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

i'm off the air for a while, from home at least.  my modem has gone kerflooey - perhaps from the incredible storm we experienced here today.  i unplugged everything, but not soon enough.  i didn't get home until the storm had been raging for a while.  a truly outstanding electrical storm, with torrents of rain, hail, the whole deal. 

so i'm at the library, just to check mail and to say - i'll be back as soon as i can.

AMERICAN GODS

it's monday monday, monday morning - and i have nothing at all that i absolutely HAVE to do.  the first real week of my vacation.  and it feels so strange.  G and i spent the weekend mostly zonked out; we were both totally exhausted and boneless, unable to do much else but sleep, read, watch movies.  a hospital kind of respite.   there's so much i need to start doing here, in the yard, gardens, house, but i think i'm not quiiiiiiiiite finished resting.

a lot of people, really an enormous number, did the Weekend Assignment from Señor Scalzi.  i have yet to get around to reading all of them, or, indeed most of them. i did mine, but got my comment into the thread too late, i think.  it's here in my book journal, if you're interested.  it reveals a whole lot about a side of me i've never mentioned, the side that has often gotten me accused of being a Drama Queen, throughout my life. 

the book i'm reading now is American Gods, by Niel Gaiman, and really  -except for sleeping-  it's all i want to do, curl up in an air-conditioned place  (really hot and humid here in DE right now, thunderstorms predicted all week) and read read read this book.  why am i talking about my reading in THIS journal, you may ask?  because i'm about to enter a quote from the book and i think it belongs here in this personal/political journal, as well as, perhaps, in The Biblio Philes.  The quote:

"There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right.  The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do.  And that is what makes them dangerous."

This is, i believe, the position of the most dangerous forces in the world today, among which i include ALL fundamentalist religious denominations, as well as the neoconservative forces driving this ever-less-rational war.  the most dangerous conviction is that of being utterly and completely righteous, convinced that god is on your side.

A friend in Dallas forwarded this letter to me during this past week.  I have just read it today, and find that much of it mirrors inchoate thoughts i have been having about the whole Abu Ghraib situation.  the idea that "In a free society some are guilty; all are responsible." resounds deeply for me.  i am not jewish, am not really religious at all - but i do believe "the American people should be shocked into a  new spiritual state of heightened responsibility"  for this entire war and all the resulting horrors.  yes, all war brings horrors.  but this is not a war for which we can claim any high moral road of righteousness, and it's time to stop pretending we can. 

This letter is from Rabbi Arthur Waskow, of The Shalom Center, a place well worth your visit.

Dear Friends,

Have the photos of American soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners made America "tamei"?  (A little further on in this letter, I will explore the meaning of this mysterious Hebrew word.)

And if so, what should we do about it?

The Bible readings for this past Shabbat addressed the question of how a priest becomes "tamei."  In the Torah discussion of P'nai Or of Philadelphia, which I frequently weave, the community chose to focus on the spiritual state of "tumah" that emerges from contact with a dead body. The priest moves out of "tumah" by withdrawing from the community for seven days and them immersing himself in a pool of living waters.

By the end of the discussion, it occurred to me to ask:

"Has the shock of the photographs of torture by US troops of Iraqi prisoners made the whole American people 'tamei'? And if so, what should we do to reenter a more normally sacred spiritual space?"

I am writing to ask your views on both those questions. If a whole nation becomes tamei, what is the equivalent of the seven days of withdrawal and immersion that the Torah specifies for individuals who become tamei by touching death?

This is not a rhetorical question. In the rest of this letter I will share my own thoughts, but most of all I would like to hear yours.  Please write me at Shalomctr@aol.com .

Please let me know whether you are willing for me to share your letter with others, with or without your name attached.

And if you are willing, please share my thoughts and your own with your fellow-congregants, and ask them to write me too.

First, what do I mean by the spiritual state of "tumah"?

Most translations convey "tamei" and "tumah" as "impure, impurity," or "defiled, defilement."

But recent translators have looked at the way the concept is used in the Hebrew Bible and have sought a subtler understanding, since it arises for a mother who has just given birth, for women and men who have made love, for a menstruating woman. Some have suggested "uncanny," or "taboo."

Everett Fox's translation of The Five Books of Moses refuses to translates these words at all, and just writes "tamei" in the midst of English. 

Rabbi Phyllis Berman suggests it is a state of intense inward focus that arises from encountering an event like birth or death that is so intense, so soul-connected, that it severs a person's connections with community and shakes a person into a state of inner private holiness.

This kind of holiness is incompatible with the communal holiness of "kedusha," a sacred state that permits easy access to the Holy Shrine. To reconnect with the people as a whole and with the collective Holy Place of the people, it is necessary consciously to cross a threshold of time and rebirth in the oceanic, amniotic fluids.

(See her article on tumah as it appears in the Torah:)
http://www.shalomctr.org/index.cfm/action/read/section/metsora/article/torah41.html

So I am not asking whether the whole American people has been defiled, but whether we have been - or should be -- shocked into a new spiritual state of heightened responsibility. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said over and over, "In a free society, some are guilty. All are responsible."

In order to think about what spiritual practices might take us beyond tumah, we must ask -- responsible for what? Responsible --  "answerable," the word means - for creating the systematic process by which some of our soldiers became torturers.

The systematic process is not new, or unheard-of. The psychologist Phil Zimbardo has written anew (see our Home Page)  about decades-old studies of simulated prisons where "guards" given absolute power over "prisoners" soon did exactly what the real-life guards of Abu Ghraib did. He added, this is a resultnot of tossing a few bad-apple sadistic soldiers into a good barrel, but of forcing good apples into a bad barrel - which turned them bad.

The "bad barrel" is this war, rooted in lies and itself a crime under international law.

A war rooted not in defending the United States but in imposing the will of the present US government on the nation of Iraq.

A war undertaken as part of a planned series of wars to guarantee US domination of the world into the indefinite future.

A war which the US entered while already holding prisoners that the Secretary of Defense said explicitly were not entitled to protection under any law - not the Geneva Conventions, not the Constitution.  And though he now says prisoners in Iraq were different from prisoners taken in Afghanistan, no one told the guards or their teachers what Geneva says, let alone to obey it.

A war not undertaken to get rid of a tyrant - there are plenty of tyrants in the world, many supported over the decades by the US itself (including Saddam Hussein, when he was fighting against the US enemy du jour, Iran).

In short, this war would have been rejected by the American people, had they known what the real motives of the US government were.

So those who lied, who shattered international law, are the "some" who are guilty.

But the "bad barrel" into which we threw the good apples of our Appalachian youth was not just the war.

It was also the prison system of the United States, which is also set up with guards having almost absolute power and which also - as   reported in the New York Times - produces rape, beatings, and torture as a result.

(See Fox Butterfield's article at -)
http://www.shalomctr.org/index.cfm/action/read/section/iraq/article/article599.html

Many are the TV cop shows where rape of prisoners is treated like a reality - so well-known as to be a joke that's always worth a snicker. And a threat to frighten those in custody.

How many of us have walked away from those cop shows to say, "You mean that's normal in our prisons? Disgusting! - What can I do to prevent the rape of prisoners?"

We are ALL  responsible - answerable.

That was why a shudder of horror ran through America  as the torture photos sank in.

That is what, in my view, made us all tamei.

Not as individuals. - I do not think it would make sense for each of us to isolate herself, himself, for seven days, and then to soak alone in a body of living water.

How can a whole nation make itself "tahor" - clarify its relationship to what happened and to the rest of the world?

What follows are my own thoughts. As I said above, I welcome yours and if you are willing, I would be glad to share them with others.

The only way to make our use of power holy is rhythmically, periodically, to relinquish our power, to share it with the powerless. Sabbath. Hajj.  The sabbatical year and the Jubilee Home-bringing.

A suggestion: Announce this week that next Sabbath or Juma, there will
be a special time for getting in touch with the depth of feeling people have had about the revelations of torture.

At the sacred gathering itself, set aside an hour.

Begin with ten minutes of silent meditation focused on the breath and the joyful dignity of our bodies.

If you can feel you can do this without violating the community's sense of sacred time, you might arrange for grown-ups to see a few of the torture photos.

Whether you do the photo sharing or not, ask people to take ten minutes in a dyad - talking with one other person -- to share their own reactions to the photos and articles about the torture of prisoners. Do NOT- at this time - ask them to share assessments, or proposals, or actions. Only the feelings they felt.

After this exchange, take ten minutes to absorb in silence what each dyad has said.

Then invite any who wish to stand and say to the whole congregation in one minute or less the central spark of what they learned.

End with a prayer to the Source of peace. Invite people to come on a weekday night to talk about what to do to repair the broken sense of American decency.

Announce that one hour of the next week’s service will be given over to much the same process, so that  seven or eight days will be given to this time of communal reflection.

At this second gathering of reflection, end the special hour by asking the congregation as a "communal immersion" to reenter the sacred Ocean of the world, by seven minutes of chanting a melody with no words and then seven minutes of breathing along with all living creatures.

My own hope is that many many Americans will see that a full tshuvah or "turning" away from the patterns of absolutist top-down control that brought on these tortures must include -

- ending this war abroad, moving toward a farmore planetary community to address the real dangers of proliferating weapons and spreading terrorism

- and transforming the present US prison system - aptly called the war at home -- from one that often teaches and rewards sadism, to one committed to compassionate transformation of criminals into citizens.

Perhaps if we can actually share this process across our country, other responses will arise. I trust the process of reflection, especially when it is specifically connected with the Spirit.

With blessings of shalom,
Arthur

THE 32ND PRESIDENT, REMEMBERED

the trip to Washington was lovely, even including the drive there and back w/out AC in the Toyota.  there were so many wonderful smells along the way (until actually reaching the city):  the yellow-wood trees are blooming all along the highway, also the polonias.  the air was fragrant with those blossoms, roses, honeysuckle, cut grass, hay drying in the fields.  i was actually glad to have no AC, forcing me to keep the windows open.  i would have missed the smells of late spring, early summer otherwise.

here, though, is the highlight of the trip.  our visiting friend is a landscape architect and my sister a landscape designer.  and we are all FDR fans.  so after a delicious dinner, a little ranting and raving  (but in fact we all exercised remarkable restraint), we set off for a night trip to the FDR Memorial.  if you have not yet visited this remarkable place, put it in your plans for any future trip to D.C.  it's been open seven years this month, and it just gets better and better.  the landscaping is now maturing, the site is incredible - four acres between the Potomac and the Tidal Basin - but it is the strength of the place and what it says about our 32nd President that makes it so remarkable.  it was filled with high-school trippers, a fact that fills me with gladness, because despite their baggy-pantsd cavorting, even they seemed impressed by this monument.  it's four outdoor "rooms," each with sculptures, water features, and most overwhelming of all, inscriptions from FDR's speeches carved into the huge granite walls.  here are a few samples:

"No Country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order." Second Fireside Chat on Government and Modern Capitalism, Washington, D.C., September 30, 1934.

 "Among American citizens there should be no forgotten men and no forgotten races." Address at the Dedication of the New Chemistry Building, Howard University, Washington, D.C., October 26, 1936.

 "Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men." Message to Congress on the Use of Our Natural Resources, Washington, D.C., January 24, 1935.

 "In these days of difficulty, we Americans everywhere must and shall choose the path of social justice,the path of faith, the path of hope and the path of love toward our fellow men." Campaign Address, Detroit, Michigan, October 2, 1932.

"I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, and ill-nourished. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." Second Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., January 20, 1937.

Well, i realize i could go on and on.  there're all here, you can read all of them yourself.  best is to go and see them in situ, it brings chills to me just remembering.  this one, the VietNam War Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial are the DC public monuments that move me, that define what it is for me to be an American.

OH HAPPY HAPPY DAY

i've just come back from the English as a Second Language students' certificate graduation ceremony at the college.  it was so wonderful - we were all high as kites with pride and joy.  we had 35 graduates from the program this year, and most of them will be going on to take associate's degree programs now in the college.  the speaker at the ceremony was a Korean student who graduated from the program previously and who, this year, is graduating with a 4.0 from the college and going on to a four-year school for a full degree.  her speech was truly inspiring; it left me with tears in my eyes.  so earnest, so sincere and full of hope.  i know i've bitched and moaned all through the semester, but today shows me what all the hard work is really for.  these young people still have what we used to call The American Dream in their hearts and learning English is their first major step on the road to achieving it.  this is still the place where people come to fulfill that dream of a better life for themselves and their children.  two of the students today are expecting babies this summer, two others passed their citizenship tests during the past week - they give me hope also, that this country will still be able to climb out of this present mess, no matter how entrenched it seems to be, and become once again the place where Lady Liberty beckons.  for all of us. 

and now i'm off to D.C. for the day, and perhaps to spend the night.  an old friend of my sister's and mine is in town from California lobbying for her group (American Society of Landscape Architects) and after her day of meetings we're all getting together for dinner at my sister's house.  we are all rabid liberals/progressives, disgusted with the present administration and all its ramifications; i know there will be some ranting, also possibly raving, happening on 33rd St. tonight.  depending on how much wine my brother-in-law brings up from his well-stocked cellar.

i've postponed my Texas trip for a while, too much to take care of here right now to go gallivanting off just yet.  i'll probably go in June, when it's good and hot down there.  yessirree, in the 100's by then.  might as well experience the whole enchilada.  speaking of which, by that time maybe i'll have low-carbed it long enough to actually be able to HAVE some enchiladas.  be a mortal shame to be in San Antonio and not eat Mexican food. 

GREAT NEW DIET PLAN!!

Have you heard of the
NO-CARB Diet for 2004?

                NO C-heney
                NO A-shcroft
                NO R-umsfeld
                NO B-ush . . .
                  and "Absolutely No Rice!"

This diet will take you successfully through the next election.
Pass it on

LIFE GOES ON

okay now, one more hurdle to jump and the semester will be over!  three classes are finished, finalized, graded, grades put into the computer.  tonight will be the last gasp; it all has to be completed by noon tomorrow.  i'll meet my writing class one last time tonight.  if miracles still happen they'll hand in their final assignments for their portfolios and it'll all be over but the shouting.  i do love my students, but it will be with enormous relief that i'll hand in my last bit of paperwork (grade summary sheets) and remove the piles of books, papers, notebooks, workbooks, tapes, binders, folders, dictionaries, from my dining room table.  the past week has been a kind of marathon. 

this past weekend, in medias res, my sister and niece came out from D.C. for a Delaware weekend.  i did all the work i could on Friday, so that Saturday and Sunday could be spent having fun.  it certainly helped my spirits!  my niece is an adorable six-year-old who is so full of enthusiasm and delight that she infects everyone around her. we went to Assateague National Seashore on Saturday, saw ponies, two different kinds of deer, many birds, including a Canada goose sitting on her nest in a small thicket - her mate was out in the water keeping a very wary eye on us.  it was utterly magical, we felt privy to a wonder.  on Sunday my sister helped us get some much-needed gardening work done.  my perennial beds out in front of the house no longer make me cringe when i pass them.  in fact, they look fantastic! 

just before they left on Sunday evening we had another nest experience - there's a robin's nest in the big rhododendron bush outside the sitting-room window right at eye-level  (except if you're six.  then you have to stand on a chair to see it.)  with either three or four, hard to tell which, big-mouth baby birds.  their mouths stay open even when they're sleeping.  we all spent quite a while watching the parental robins dashing around hunting and gathering, bringing gifts of worms and bugs to their offspring.  today the babies seem to be about twice as big as they were yesterday.

more news - i've joined a group over in Lewes called Sussex County for Kerry.  i haven't been able to attend a meeting yet, but will later this month.  i put my name down for the voter registration committee.  they'll train us and get us set up to spend the summer registering new voters.  they're intent on getting graduating seniors from the high schools registered, which seems like a great idea. 

i hope to spend some time reading and catching up on journals and blogs tomorrow and wednesday, because thursday is the ESL graduation and then i'm taking off for a week or so in Texas.  i had planned to go during spring break, but instead spent that week in a Soft Room trying to recover myself.  i'm actually thinking of driving down, though i have a free ticket thanks to having a brother-in-law who works for Southwest Airlines.  i love a solitary long-distance drive, find it a form of meditative retreat.  either way i probably won't have much computer time while i'm gone, as i'll be visiting family and friends. 

SIGNS OF LIFE

Hello world.  I'm just checking in for a moment to say I'm still alive and kicking.  In exactly one week i will be a free woman, able to read and write and think again.  Right now i'm in the throes of giving finals, computing grades, reading all the essays students have waited to hand in til the last moment, taping final speeches for Listening and Speaking  class, holding students' hands through final presentations...oh, on and on.  it's always like this, but somehow this semester is worse than usual.  mainly because of the week i missed while broken down.  we're making up for lost time. 

i'm reading email, looking at cartoons, checking the news (although i can hardly stand to do so - i accidentally saw a few of the Iraqi prisoner abuse photos, and have had soul-sickness ever since), trying to keep an oar in.  I miss my Journal community, but right now my student community is my priority.  Hasta la vista, amigos y amigas.

SOME SUNDAY STUFF

first off, i want to link to Old Hickory's entry on the subject of the use of torture and humiliation by American personnel in the Iraqi prison, about which i wrote in yesterday's entry.  he has some interesting further information about this situation that everyone needs to know.  if you read past that entry you'll also find good entries on Senator John McCain's protest of the Sinclair Syndicate's refusal to air the "controversial" Nightline.

in a totally different vein, the weekend assignment from Señor Scalzi, about advice, bad and good.  i ain't gonna do it.  i neither give nor receive advice very often.  in truth, i can't remember any outstanding examples of either good/bad advice given or taken.  so, i'm totally tabula rasa on this subject.  instead, i'm going to do an assignment from Robbie's journal:  "from what burden in your life would you most like to free yourself?" 

now, i take this as personal burden, not the global issues, right?  i've actually been giving this question a lot of consideration since i first read it yesterday. there are those burdens from which i really can't free myself, the first of which would be working, because i have to continue to eat, pay bills, feed the animals, go to movies, etc.  there are burdens, such as family responsibilities, from which i can't free myself without taking on an even larger burden - of guilt.  so, i have been thinking about those things burdening me which are of my own making. 

and from this list i have selected:  excess personal possessions as the main stone i'm rolling up the hill.  for a long time G and i owned properties in both Texas and Massachusetts, a house in Dallas and a guest house plus cottage/owners' quarters in Truro. that made three dwellings.  all fully furnished.  we sold all of those houses, put everything in storage and traveled in an RV for most of one disastrous year.  when we finally settled back on terra firma it was in this big old house, with a huge yard.  we got everything out of storage and moved it in here.  we've had several yard sales in the six years we've been here, gotten rid of what seems like a lot of stuff, but here we yet are with 14 rooms and an attic full of stuff. 

i come from a family of packrats, and i have inherited the gene.  amongst my burdening possessions is a fair amount of stuff that belonged to my mother and my aunt, stuff i salvaged when i settled their estates.  my mother was such a packrat that there was enough furniture, pictures, dishes, silver, clothing, pots/pans, antiques of all kinds, that all six of us took what we wanted AND we had a large estate sale as well.  i see myself well on my way to becoming my mother. 

at this point in our lives, even this big house and yard are becoming burdens.  it would be a fulltime job in itself to take the kind of care of this property that it needs.  we both work, G at two jobs, i at one very demanding job. we are getting too old to live like this.  so, since i won't be working this summer my plan is to start offloading Stuff from our lives.  i'm looking into ebay as a way to do some of this, yard sales for some, consignment sales for yet more.  we plan to move west in about a year, we are firm in our resolve to pare down to what will fit in a smaller house. 

anyone need some Stuff?

SATURDAY MORNING THOUGHTS

To those of you, my AOL Journals friends and companions, who have been so kind and caring during the hard times i've been having, i want to send my deepest gratitude.  you have been a great solace, comfort, and help.  I also want to let you know how much better i am, certainly than i was a month ago.  it was a crash that was creeping up on me over a considerable period of time. i ignored the warning signs, until they couldn't be ignored any longer - because there i was hitting bottom.  my physical health was very bad during this same time, which also contributed to the waning of my mental health.  during the ensuing weeks i have been paying a lot of attention to becoming a healthy mind in a sane body.  or, no, a sane mind in a healthy body.  you know what i mean..  i think my teaching may have suffered because of this, but not terminally. 

so, i've been walking, doing T'ai Chi, eating in such a healthy fashion that i amaze myself, taking the time - as in Thursday's post - to pay attention to the good things in the world around me.  not to mention having been on a strong dose of effexor for the past four weeks. 

i was even able to sit through a three-hour faculty meeting yesterday without screaming.  or only very low-key screaming.  once.  restraining myself from getting up and leaping out the window several times.  no way to tell you how i hate those things. i always go with the firm intention of keeping my mouth absolutely shut, but inevitably end up opening it.  then regretting it.  because, really, it does no good.  i'm usually in a fringe minority in my opinions, and i end up looking like a wacko.  mmmm hmmm. 

but i came home and recovered from it by hours of mowing, clipping, weeding, heaving and hauling out in the bright windy spring sunshine.  so, now i feel fine. 

except, of course, for the extreme sadness, verging on despair, i feel when i read the news.  i just read news here on AOL before coming to my journal, my next stop will be to go see the political cartoons that Progressive Musings sends me daily (in, i think, his effort to help me keep some sanity).  the cartoons enable the despair to lift slightly.  but how can we not feel déjà vu all over again when we read the stories, see the pictures, of the torture of prisoners by American GI's in Iraq?  i remember the horror stories from Viet Nam in such stark detail, and i know the damage caused to the very guys who performed the torture and brutality.  it ruined not only their victims, but their own futures.  they still wander our streets as homeless vets, inhabit our veterans' hospitals in psych wards, have committed suicide,  or even if functioning they still wake up sweating from nightmares of brutal horror.  it's being trained to regard the enemy as "the other" that enables decently brought up young Americans to become torturers and brutes.  and it's an evil evil thing.  i despair to see it happening in our history yet again.

then, there's the refusal on the part of a tv station conglomerate to show the Nightline program with the recital of the names, showing of photos, of those who have thus far lost their lives in this insane conflict.  what could they be thinking?  what ever political stance you take towards this war, do you not feel some compunction to know the truth?  to see the toll in human life?  and that's just the American toll.  were an Arab station to do an equivalent honoring of their, mostly civilian, dead, it would last for hours.  we don't want to see the coffins come home to their final rest?  we don't want to see those youthful smiling faces, now missing from their homes, their loved ones?  what kind of cowards have we become?

Cynthia, at Sorting the Pieces, was equally outraged this morning by these same two pieces of news.  she has an excellent entry here.